Maryhilda grew up in a world of small rooms and big dreams. A world where mornings began with the rattle of old paint buckets in the bathroom line, where neighbours were pork sellers, wood carvers, vulcanisers and everyday people with stories etched into their hands and faces.
It’s in these faces and streets that Maryhilda Ibe first found poetry, not in books or classrooms, but in the rhythm of ordinary life.
Today, that rhythm has carried her far, to one of the most prestigious poetry fellowships in the world, and a prize worth $27,000.
What’s her story?
Maryhilda was born in Cross River State and grew up in what many would call the typical, average Nigerian life; one that, to most, simply meant poverty.
This was her “grass.”
That humble beginning that makes the contrast sweeter, that foundation that draws readers in when the story shifts to what we all fondly call “grace.”
Maryhilda freelanced and tutored on the side to make ends meet, all while chasing her growing passion for poetry.
In 2023, she moved to the United States to study, carrying with her the voices of home and a deep commitment to telling Nigerian stories; the quiet, everyday moments that shape our collective identity.
“I write for people like me,” she says. “For the ordinary, the mundane, the ones who I believe are important to the fashioning of the Nigerian Identity.”
Call it destiny, God, divine alignment, or the quiet mathematics of the universe, where hard work meets its echo in reward. Whatever the name, Nigerian poet Maryhilda Obasiota Ibe has stepped into its light. At just 23, she has been named a recipient of the prestigious Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship, awarded by the Poetry Foundation.
A whopping $27,000 grant!
This is one of the biggest poetry awards for young writers in the United States, designed to support poets between the ages of 21 and 31.
For Maryhilda, this is a leap from a life where she once earned ₦25,000 a month teaching in Nigeria, to standing among some of the brightest literary talents in the world.
The $27,000 grant is not an isolated stroke of luck. It’s the latest jewel in a crown Maryhilda has been weaving, word by word, prize by prize. Her pen has already danced its way to victory, snagging the Indiana Review Poetry Prize, the American Literary Review Poetry Prize, and the Bloomsday Poetry Prize. Her work has appeared in respected journals like Indiana Review, American Literary Review, Chestnut Review, and Brittle Paper.
She’s also a Best of the Net nominee and currently serves as the Hoffman-Halls Emerging Artist Fellow at the Wisconsin Institute of Creative Writing.
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